LG to produce 12-megapixel handsets

LG has told of its plans to keep up with the recently-reveleaed Sony Ericsson Idou by releasing a 12-megapixel camera phone.

LG's head of UK marketing Jeremy Newing told TechRadar that "it's the same when you're buying a car, if you've got two equal cars then you'll obviously go for the one with the bigger engine".

Although the numbers are likely to bring in the punters, as the Idou did when it claimed the second position on our top 10 news stories of Mobile World Congress 2009, we'd suggest that upping the megapixels doesn't necessarily mean an overall rise in the quality of the pictures you'll get.

For example, many budget SLR cameras have significantly less than 12 megapixels to their name but you'd almost certainly get better photos with one of them than an Idou.

Unfortunately, since the quality of a lens can't be so easily quantified in a way that'll draw phone buyers in, it'll most likely be pixels that will claim the front page in mobile phone camera developments for the time being.

Newing did hint at improvements outside of the pixel count though, saying that "getting lens quality is something else that's a requirement, and optical zoom is important too, although I can't go into detail other than to say we have a clear imaging strategy".